Premier League legend believes Pep Guardiola has ruined football

Tim Howard, the former American international who played for Manchester United as well as Everton in the Premier League, believes that. As former Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, and Paris Saint-Germain manager Mauricio Pochettino gets ready to take the helm of the USMNT, he is now closely monitoring international affairs.

He takes over a team that under Gregg Berhalter performed poorly during the 2024 Copa America, giving a lacklustre performance on home grounds. Pochettino has a wealth of talent at his disposal, including players like Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, and Gio Reyna, but he must figure out how to maximise a promising new generation.

The former Manchester United goalkeeper said, “What Gregg Berhalter did was — you look back at my generation, we were just a bunch of tough, rugged guys. We had a couple of match-winners. He got this team to believe they could compete and be expansive and play well in the forward areas.”

The Premier League legend added, “I think what happened was in all ways, Pep Guardiola has ruined football. Pep Guardiola has taught everybody that they can play expansive football. They can’t. Not everybody can do it, three teams in the world can do it really well.”

“I think you have to be resolute at times” : Tim Howard

Tim Howard believes that the USMNT class of 2024 should be shaped like Pochettino's Spurs squad, who advanced to the UEFA Champions League final in 2019, rather than taking Pep Guardiola's lead.

The former Everton shotstopper concluded by saying that, “I think you have to be resolute at times. And when you look at Pochettino's best teams, on his Tottenham teams it was two banks of four plus two at the top. And then when they broke, they broke with four players. Ultimately, they were rock-solid defensively, or at least tried to be. And so I think if [Pochettino] starts to instil that resoluteness defensively, the [USMNT] has enough players in the forward areas where they can be dangerous.”